


Birthdays are Suppose to be Special, Right?

by SunflowerRose22



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Cake, Birthday Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, sarkan is doing his best, still calling Aggie Aggie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 13:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunflowerRose22/pseuds/SunflowerRose22
Summary: This is Aggie’s first birthday that she actually gets to celebrate with Sarkan. Naturally she had planned to spend the entire day with him, relaxing and enjoying a moment of peace, but something goes amiss as she finds herself sent to Dvernik without so much as a good morning.





	Birthdays are Suppose to be Special, Right?

   Aggie snuggled deeper into the blankets, trying to escape the autumn chill that had wrenched her from sleep. She reached a hand out to pat the other side of the bed, looking for a warm body to curl against. She was met with cold sheets. The wooden floor was just as prickly cold against her bare feet as she pushed aside the thick canopy curtain, peering out into a dark room. Out the window she could see the rays of the sun beginning to tint the clouds pink. Aggie smiled to herself as she went to take a closer look, pulling the blanket off the bed in the process. She wrapped it around her shoulders as she admired the hills sloping down into the valley, with the trees of the Wood bursting into various shades of golds and reds. She couldn’t have asked for a better morning to have a birthday. The scattering clouds promised the sun a chance to warm the earth, which would make it the perfect day to take a walk through the undergrowth of the Woods and lie on the Spindle’s bank. She could even bring along a basket of sweets, just for her and Sarkan.  

   The bedroom door swung open, its hinges groaning from age. Aggie turned to beam at her lover. He was dressed more casually than usual, in a simple loose shirt with a laced-up collar and his normal pair of black pants. In his arms were her travelling cloak and satchel coated in dry mud. 

   “Up already?” Sarkan asked, surprise lacing his tone. His initial astonishment was quickly conquered by a tight frown. Before she could speak, or at least ruffle his hair out of place, he snapped, “You  need to go,” and held out her belongings. 

   The blanket dropped to the floor as she crossed the room, a short homespun dress rippling out to replace it. “No good morning?” she asked. 

   He paused a heartbeat too long, leaving Aggie to hover in suspense with magic crackling on her tongue. “Dvernik,” was barely out of his mouth before the spiced smell of the Tower gave way to the sharp freshness of a dewy morning as Aggie leapt out. 

   The center of Dvernik was void of activity. Besides the low gabble of a handful of townsfolk with their heads tucked together, Aggie couldn’t hear any voices. She didn’t have to try hard to make out the songs of birds singing to the sun. She could even hear the wind rustling through the branches, shaking leaves to the ground. It was all unexpectedly normal.    
   Aside from the lack of delirious rioting, the air wasn’t thickened by dead silence: a telltale sign that clung to the more malicious haunts of the Wood. Though it had been a year and a month, or three, since Sarkan and she had pacified the queen of the Wood that didn’t mean all of its inhabitants automatically transformed into hospitable neighbors. Fortunately her initial fears lay unfounded as she inspected the area some more. She probed the air with a number of spells, trying to sense for something, anything really. She was at a loss for what, exactly, Sarkan had dragged her out here for. Silent irritation curdled her concern, turning it bitter. As far as she could tell, the only suspicious thing around was the huddle of farmers still milling about as they peeked at her from over their shoulders. Their eyes widened as she approached them.

   “What’s going on here?” she demanded. At first they could only manage half words and long drawn out hmms and haws. Aggie was just about to jump back into Sarkan’s face and demand an explanation when one of the farmers piped up.

   “Do -do you think you can help me?” he asked rather shrilly, tugging on his collar. Aggie squinted at him for a moment, trying to recall what his name was. She thought that he might have a son a couple of years younger than she. Or maybe he was the turnip farmer with twins. 

   “With what?” she finally asked, making an effort to keep impatience out of her voice.

   The farmer didn’t answer right away. He had to be jabbed in the back. “My sheep!” he squeaked.

   “What about them?”

   “They’re - they’re lost. In the Wood. Terrible business. I mean- oh I’m desolated! Please help me. You see-” and before Aggie knew it the man had his hand around her wrist, pulling her towards the Wood while launching into a rather lengthy tale of hereditary herds and rotting wood. His companions chimed in with rather unnecessary details, some of them long enough to be short stories themselves. Regardless of what she thought, Aggie soon found herself scouring the border of the Wood for stray sheep.

   By the time she realized what was happening, her entire day had gone tumbling downhill. When she came back to the square, lugging two scrawny excuses for sheep behind her, the midwife approached her. Then the carpenter. Then her own mother came calling, asking if she could mend the fence outside her house. Everybody and their uncle had problems and they were all insistent Aggie had to be the one to fix them. The requests varied from purifying water wells to soothing horses to even chopping up firewood. 

   Aggie couldn’t find it in herself to do anything but comply. She could only wonder if any of this meant anything to Sarkan. Why did he send her here? Was she somehow leading her village away from certain doom by mending a few pots? If that was the case, why wasn’t he here too? Was he doing the same trivial tasks elsewhere? Or was this just to keep her working?

 

   Aggie wiped the flour from her hands on a worn apron and sighed deeply. Through a small window of her mother’s kitchen, the sunlight came pouring into the room. By now the sun had sunken well past its full height. She turned to her mother and caught her glaring up at the sky. 

   “The cakes are ready to be baked,” Aggie said. 

   “Cake? What cake-” her mother said with a start before seeing the tray Aggie was holding out. “Oh, yes. Those cakes.” 

   “Is that all you needed?” Aggie asked warily. She could see a couple of villagers milling around the front door, filling her with dread. Each new request proposed was becoming more minute and ridiculous than the last: pots that she had just mended would come back within the hour broken, gentle milk cows would spontaneously bulldoze through freshly made fences, and that damn farmer couldn’t keep his sheep in their pen. At this point it was too much of a coincidence to be the work of misfortune. 

   “You know, there was something else-” her dear mother stalled. She seemed to be looking around the kitchen without really knowing what she was looking for. Aggie groaned. Then she flinched at her mother’s sharp look. “Honestly,” her mother said roughly. 

   “You think I wanted to spend my entire day doing chores?” Aggie bristled. 

   “You certainly weren’t supposed to spend your entire day this way,” her mother said, shooting another look towards the sky. 

   “A bit late for that,” Aggie said. 

   “Don’t look at me. This wasn’t my idea.”

   “Then who’s-” before she could finish, she realized how useless the question was. She already knew who. What she didn’t know was why.

   Did Sarkan even remember it was her birthday? He must have, given how often she hinted at it. She’d even been sticking around the tower more often, giving what help she could offer so maybe, just maybe, he could have spent the entire day with her. Maybe he didn’t care. He was over a century old, after all. Maybe he viewed birthdays as drops in a river. And maybe he expected her to feel the same, now that she was growing accustomed to the idea that she was going to outlive everything she loved, save one. If that’s what he wanted, her apathy, then it was a shame he wasn’t going to get it. Of course birthdays still mattered to her. They kept her human. And it hurt to think that he might not respect that. That despite how often she hinted and planned for today, he didn’t bother to make the effort to be here with her. He even went the extra measure to remove her from the Tower by dishing out some half baked tale that she fell for in a heartbeat. He probably didn’t even give a damn about how her stomach twisted till it ached. All he cared about was his peace and quiet. It made her want to trek mud through his halls and rattle the pots in the kitchen until he came down to investigate. 

   “Agnieszka, come back here,” her mother called as Aggie stormed out the front door, rushing past those who called out to her. In a few steps, she was back in his bedroom, pulling aside the canopy curtains. There was nobody around to shout at. She stomped down the stairs and slammed open every door she came across, feeling deep satisfaction with how the bangs echoed through the halls. 

   The library was dim and empty. 

   His study was quiet too. Though all of his potions were filed away, there was a lingering stench of something burnt that clung to the walls. It was so strong that she couldn’t tell where it came from. 

   The smell was present in every room she searched. And with every room she searched, the more dread filled her gut. 

   She wasn’t slamming doors anymore as she neared the ground level, hand listlessly trailing along the railing. A quiet sort of sorrow filled the holes the anger left behind, making her footsteps softer but just as heavy. She stopped altogether and plunked down in the middle of the stairs, head in hands. The tower was silent, save the creaks of the stone and the hiccups in Aggie’s breaths. Distantly she could hear pots clinking softly against one another down in the kitchen, accompanied by a distant scrapping. She must have left a window open last night while she was cooking. 

   The horrid rattle of a bowl hitting the floor sent a jolt through her spine. Aggie nearly tripped head first down the stairs as she skipped several steps at a time. Underneath the musk of burnt goods was a light airy scent of lemon. The air was hazed with lingering smoke as Aggie reached the kitchen doorway.

   It was an absolute mess. The counters were covered in bowls, batter, and upturned pans with half done or over done chucks of cake in them. Shells of eggs lay around the waste bin. The once full bag of flour sagged over itself, nearly depleted. A basket of lemons sat on the counter with most of the lemons around it either cut into slices or laying mangled in their own juice. And there Sarkan was, in the midst of the disaster, leaning his elbows on the counter with flour covered hands dug in his hair. Next to him was one of Aggie’s recipe books with very neat scribbles in the margins, ones that she certainly never made. On the floor next to him was the mixing bowl with white lumpy batter oozing onto the floor.  

   Sarkan jumped when Aggie started to giggle uncontrollably. His face was impossibly red and he looked like he was going to get snarky until he stopped to study her face, eyes softening. He reached up to push her hair aside as he took her face into his hands.  

   “I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his thumbs against her cheeks, against the stains of tears.

   “You’re making a cake?” she asked between bursts of laughter, “Master at potions and you can’t make a cake?” It was a lemon cake at that. She loved lemon cakes. 

   “They’re different,” he snipped. 

   She wiped the batter from his cheek with the hem of her dress. Him and his dumb face with smudges of flour and frosting. Even his hair was streaked with flour.

   “Are you editing my recipe?” she asked. 

   “Maybe you should write better instructions,” he said, gesturing haphazardly to the recipe book.   

   “Whatever happened to using magic to bake?”

   Sarkan sort of threw up his hands in exasperation and didn’t answer.

   “In your opinion,” she continued vindictively, “is the world going to end if you break your fence? Or am I just speculating here?”

   “I had no say in what they requested. All I asked was for them to keep you distracted for an hour or so.” Aggie scoffed. Sarkan shot her a glare before letting his face fall with guilt, eyeing up the spilt batter. He nudged it with his boot. “At least I estimated it would only take an hour or two to complete. But, well,” he trailed off, pinching the bridge of his nose as he gestured to the tins of lemon-cakes, all a variety of colors and consistencies. From there, Aggie could see the rest of the tale unfold: Sarkan must have followed her recipe to the period, muddling through her notes and half thoughts. Naturally, he had been unsatisfied by the product. Thus he must have spent hours trying to perfect her homemade recipe. He became so caught up in experimenting and working himself into a stew of frustration that the hours slipped between his fingers. Though she wasn’t sure what deal he made with her village, or how much they actually benefited from it, it struck her amusing that out of everyone she helped today he was the one who needed her the most. She had to stop herself from pointing this out to him, lest she wounded his pride enough that he locked himself in the library. Instead she nabbed one of the gently used bowls and rinsed it out. All the while she could sense Sarkan watching her in sulky silence. At least, he was silent until she pulled out a couple of eggs and a measuring cup. 

   “You can’t possibly make your own cake,” he protested. 

   “Who says I’m doing it alone?” she asked, pushing the eggs into his hands. “We’ll make it together.”

   “But there’s nothing special about that,” he said bluntly with some bewilderment.

   “I think it’s pretty special. You’ve never baked with me before.” 

   “I thought you wanted to do something-” Sarkan stalled and stared at the eggs in his hands. “Look, I don’t know exactly what you wanted today-” 

   Aggie took his hands into hers, eggs and all. “Bake with me,” she insisted. “We’ll make the best lemon cakes in all of Polnya.”

   “Cakes?”

   “We need enough to share. How else will everyone know they’re the best?”

   “I don’t think we have enough flour for that.”

   Aggie pretended to sigh deeply and said, “I guess one or two will have to do,” before moving to kiss him on the forehead. She squeaked in surprise when Sarkan proceeded to catch her kiss with his own, managing to bonk their nose together in the process. She feigned rubbing life back into hers to hide her doting smile. It wasn’t completely necessary as Sarkan had already run out of the room to fetch parchment and paper. No doubt he was planning on jotting down her every move so he could compare notes and confidently find ways to correct her technique. Aggie knelt down to mop up the mess on the floor, smiling to herself and wondering if he would also count every brush of a kiss she planned on sneaking in.

**Author's Note:**

> This one took me longer to polish and review since college started up again. It's based on a prompt from a friend: Aggie walks in on Sarkan making a birthday cake.  
> If you have a prompt or a suggestion for the next piece, don't be afraid to hit me up!  
> Otherwise my next piece will either be drafts of this monster high school AU I've been dreaming up on Instagram or I've mustered up the bravery to post a highly sexual Wood corruption AU fic. Time will tell!
> 
> Edit* - I swear, suppose and supposed will be the death of me.


End file.
